Worthy
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: Gatchaman Crowds, JouxSugane. "Sugane is the only thing Jou has left to be proud of and the only person who still believes in him with the blind devotion of real love." Jou thinks he knows what he deserves. Sugane disagrees.
1. Night

Jou had thought, for a moment, that things couldn't get any worse. He's already aching, bleeding and coughing and he's pretty sure he has at least a few and probably several broken ribs. He doesn't know where his NOTE is, he doesn't know where Berg-Katze has gone, the only thing he is entirely sure of is that he has _failed_, _again_. At least there is a cold comfort of that, that he can't be any more useless than he already is.

That's when he hears Berg-Katze's voice, high and trilling like they're speaking to a lover or cooing over a precious bauble. The sound comes from a long way off, echoing and distant like it's reverberating off hills before catching in Jou's ear, and for a moment the words don't make any sense. Is Berg-Katze speaking to Jou? Why, when he's not able to respond, when unconsciousness is sweeping in over him like a wave, why would -

Jou would swear his blood freezes in the first moment that he realizes.

He _forgot_, how could he _forget_, he _knows_ the high wail of that scream and he saw Sugane go down to an offhand flick of Berg-Katze's diamond-shaped tail. But the voices of his demons were shrieking loud, echoing static in his ears and leaving tears standing in his eyes, and for a moment he thought, he _let_ himself believe, that he was the only target.

He thought he was safe, at least, from letting _himself_ down. His expectations for himself are already laughably low. It's good to know, he thinks dimly, with the cold clarity of true resignation, that at least he can still surprise himself.

Adrenaline is supposed to produce miracles, Jou knows. He's not sure if it's that he doesn't deserve the miracle in the first place, or that he lacks enough faith in himself to even trigger the panicked protective urge necessary to draw out that adrenaline surge in the first place. He certainly doesn't _feel_ strong. He feels crushed, beaten, defeated. Even when he hears Berg-Katze start to laugh and forces his eyes into momentary focus, all he can see is the starlight-pale line of Sugane's throat and the unresisting limp fall of his body. _Get your hands off him_, he wants to say, but his lungs won't work, _don't _touch _him_ but the words won't come. When he tries to push himself up the weight of his body is endless, an infinite burden bearing him flat and motionless to the ground, so heavy he wonders if he's not dead already, if this isn't the last hallucinatory flickers of brain activity before darkness takes over.

He has grown accustomed to looking forward to that, to dreaming of oblivion like a comfort, like peace, like the inevitable culmination of his perpetual disappointment in himself. With Sugane in sight, his head tilted back to bare his throat like an offering, for the first time in years Jou remembers what it is like to wish for another minute, another second. Just long enough to cross the distance, to throw himself over the gap and bear Berg-Katze to the ground, tear their hands off Sugane's shoulders and waist because _no one_ touches Sugane like that, not while Jou's here. But Berg-Katze _is_ touching him, and Jou _is_ here, and he's not _stopping_ it, Sugane is the only thing he has left to be proud of and the only person who still believes in him with the blind devotion of real love and Jou isn't _saving him_.

Jou always thought Sugane would be his one good thing, the one person he saved to balance out all those times he couldn't save anything. It seemed worth it, to have that single bright point. Jou blinks and he can see Sugane's smile, the way his eyelashes flutter when he's truly delighted and the soft excited tremble of his mouth whenever Jou speaks to him. He knows the shape of Sugane's handwriting and the angle his wrists fall at when he sits, he knows the bronze flecks in the gold of the other's eyes and the way his face relaxes when he's asleep. And he can see it all vanishing, the warmth of Sugane's skin and the flush on his cheeks and the bright joy in his real smile, it's slipping through his fingers and he can't move and Sugane is going to -

There's a thud, a sharp alien screech, and Hajime is there, Hajime is moving and speaking and her voice is like a bell, her voice is salvation and hope and optimism woven together into a single girl, and Sugane is _safe_. The relief hits Jou like snapping elastic, like all the strings barely holding him to consciousness have been cut. He can see the glow of the unexpected sunlight that has come to save Sugane, to carry him on into another day.

Jou shuts his eyes, and lets the darkness take him. He doesn't deserve the light, anyway.


	2. Dawn

There's no warmth in the sunlight.

It ought to be warm. Jou knows rationally that his skin is absorbing the light, turning it to life-heat in his veins, but his blood is so chilled he's almost shivering, he is numb down to his very core and no amount of blinding light can bring him back. He's staring at the evacuees shuffling in front of him, the never-ending line of people who need saving, but he's not seeing them. When he stares at their faces all he sees is the blue-marked white of Sugane's Gatchaman, the desperate motion of Sugane and the others in an attempt to save what can't be saved.

He should know, after all. Jou is good at this one thing, an expert at giving up hope and resigning himself to the inevitable. Hajime's idealistic optimism, Sugane's white-knuckled determination...those aren't for him. He doesn't deserve that sort of company, he isn't worth even the reflected radiance of their faith in goodness.

_This is how it should be_. Here, with the crowds, where his darkness can be lost in numbers. Heroes should be good people, should be special. _I am no one special. There are millions of guys who are better than me_. He can see them, the whole winding line of people, every one of them more valuable, more useful than his existence.

He doesn't belong here either, with these people who deserve to be saved. He is neither a hero nor a civilian; his life is useless, less than useless, an impossible burden to those who know him. He turns his back on the crowd, makes his way down the concrete stairs to the grassy field around them. It's empty, lonely, peaceful. It's where he belongs. He can't handle this fight, can't protect the things he cares about, can't even save himself.

_There's no way I can win._

His NOTE is heavy in his hand. He didn't even realize he had pulled it out of his pocket, didn't realize he has been rubbing his thumb idly against the spine. It has been a weight since that fight, like the tearing separation added pounds of mass to the object until Jou can't keep his grip on the smooth surface. He doesn't try to catch it as it falls, doesn't really see it even as it falls open on the grass at his feet, the pages empty as he is.

_I'm just…_

_A weight_ offers itself, _a burden_, _a liability_. _A failure._ But even those are _something_, all those have a presence Jou can't muster, and in the end he lets the words hang in his head, lets indecision paint a gap for his existence, a nothing where he ought to be.

It is a comfort, even in imagination.

There are voices behind him, shouted orders to the people who matter. Jou ignores them, fishes the box of cigarettes from his pocket so he can push one free and catch it against his lips. He's already anticipating the brief physical satisfaction of addiction, looking forward to the minimal pleasure of the first inhale, as he brings his lighter to the end of the cigarette. The anticipation stretches into discomfort, goes sour with irritation as the lighter sputters and coughs and refuses to catch. Jou clicks it a second time, a third time, and is just attempting a fourth when the breeze kissing his hair catches the page of his open NOTE and turns the paper over. The movement picks up Jou's idle attention to start, drags his gaze down for a moment; then there's another motion, dark shapes bleeding up through the paper. Jou goes still, his body recognizing the shapes of those letters even before he's placed the double-thud of his heart's reaction as his inevitable adrenaline at thinking of Sugane.

_Jou-san_, the letters say, and Jou can hear the sound of Sugane's voice, clear as if the blond is next to him. _I owe you a lot_. _Do you remember what happened?_

It's a ridiculous question. As if Jou doesn't remember, as if he hasn't played the scene over and over into worn-out nostalgia in his head. He can remember the soft of Sugane's hair under his fingers, the startled giggle of sound in a throat still damp with lingering tears.

_Don't cry_, Jou had said, _you're a man, aren't you_? And Sugane's eyes had gone wide, sparkling bright and gold like all the sunlight in his world was in Jou's face, like Jou was _worth_ something, like Jou was a hero.

The letters are still trickling over the page. _I still remember what you said_.

Jou's breath catches. His memory is vivid with repetition, he can remember the way Sugane looked at him, the infinite trust in those eyes, but the words after never make it to his replay, he cuts off before that. When he kneels down to grab the NOTE, he can hear his own voice, coming from a long way away as he reaches for the almost-gone recollection. He had smiled, looked down at the raw affection in Sugane's eyes and said -

_Make sure you save someone, too, someday_.

Jou forms the words on his lips, shapes them in the back of his throat like he'll remember who he was if he can just remind his body of it. His fingers tingle against the NOTE, sensation catching up to the weight in his hand.

_Thank you, Jou-san_. The words are spilling out over the next page, Sugane's gaining speed as he continues. _I'm not scared of anything anymore._ Jou's heart tightens on a beat, like there's not enough space for it inside his chest anymore. He can see Sugane in his head, the glow of his Gatchaman and the focus in the blond's eyes, all the strength that Jou used to have translated into light. _We're not caged birds. We are the great wings protecting this planet!_

Jou's breathing is catching in his throat. His cigarette is still between his lips; he lifts his lighter without thinking, catches the button in another futile attempt to strike a spark.

"Go, Jou!"

For a moment he thinks it's his own head speaking, or his NOTE given voice. Even when he looks back it takes him a moment to find the speaker, another to pull up the recollection of a name. "Alan?"

"Make your dream come true!" Alan is grinning, bright and delighted in spite of the woman he's supporting on his back. He shifts his weight, hitches her up to a better angle. "Gatcha!" He lifts his hand, encouragement and farewell together, and starts to jog off down the line, apparently unhindered by his passenger.

Jou's eyes are wide with shock. _My dream_. Gold eyes, devotion in a familiar face, love and appreciation and strength if he could only reach for it. His laugh startles himself, bursts from his lungs like from those of a stranger.

"Lame." He looks down, back at the NOTE in his hand. He can see Sugane's smile without shutting his eyes. "I'm so lame." Out loud it doesn't hurt as much as when it's trapped in the confines of his own head. His blood is pounding in his head, in his heart, coming alight. "Way too…" There's a flash, a culmination of something coming together in his head like flint and steel. Jou's frown is sharp, angry, but the fire in his blood is singing, bursting out past the tension of his mouth and firing his cigarette ablaze, and _he's still here_. "Lame!"

He's still here, but he doesn't have to stay. Everything is moving, his heart and his blood and his body, the cold is gone and there is just the burn of heat too-long supressed. His glasses come off, his hairtie pulls free; Jou forgets about them as soon as they're gone, drops them to fall to the grass at his feet. The NOTE is warm, now, the weight giving it presence and reality.

_Thanks, Sugane._

When Jou shakes his head his hair falls around his shoulders; he takes a long inhale off his cigarette, lets the satisfaction hit his blood, but he has more than that, now, that pleasure pales in comparison to what is to come. When he starts moving it takes a moment, he has to remember the feel of running before he can accelerate to full speed. His tie is too tight, he jerks it free one-handed as he moves, because now, _finally_, there is no time left, this isn't where he's supposed to be, this isn't where he _belongs_.

"You'd better be waiting for me!" he shouts, like Sugane can hear him, like the words carry all the years of meaning he intends them to.

He knows the other will be waiting. Sugane's always been patient with him.


	3. Sunrise

Jou's been waiting for this for a long time.

He didn't have any expectations for years. It's still something that shocks him, sometimes, realizing he's thinking of the future as more than a burden, thinking of life as something that might look up instead of remaining an inevitable slow descent. And it was easy, before, easier to ask for something he knew he wouldn't get, to avoid facing the truth of wanting something, wanting _someone_ he didn't deserve. If he asked the right question, even the burden of refusal wasn't on him; if he said the right thing, he could get Sugane to refuse over and over and over again, until Jou could shape the words on his own lips as they came out of Sugane's throat.

He thought, for a long time, that was the closest they would ever get.

It was hard to stop asking that doomed question, even knowing what it meant, even knowing that he was giving it up to gain something far greater in the future. The routine was comfortable, and relying on the future was _not_. Jou nearly made the offer again more than once, he could feel the half-hearted invitation against his lips and bubbling up his throat, but he managed to close his mouth on the words, hold back the question he knows Sugane will refuse.

Sugane never comments on the sudden cessation of Jou's regular drinking invitations. There's not a word, not a blink to indicate that he so much as notices the absence, although Jou thinks the blond might be spending more time watching him than he used to. He's can't be sure, though; it might just be a function of his own greater attention, his ever-improving ability now to see things past his own head as some of his numbness fades, as he relearns how to exist inside the space of an actual life. They still talk, casually, with Jou trying to calculate how close he can stand before it becomes too much and Sugane flushed and smiling like he's catching happiness from Jou's presence instead of the other way around.

Jou considers asking Sugane out somewhere _else_, for coffee or dinner or some other deliberate 'date' construct, to give the blond the chance to voice the _yes_ that is in his eyes all the time, the pleading reciprocation Jou could see even before, when Sugane's mouth was forming around the reminder, again, that he's a minor, that he can't accept Jou's invitation as structured. But there's a history, now, a habit Jou can't entirely break, and besides, he needs the time to ground himself out, to face down some of the demons that kept him asking impossible things of Sugane instead of risking himself on the possibility of a _yes_.

By the time Sugane's birthday arrives, Jou has been ready for weeks.

He planned originally to be waiting outside Sugane's classes, to greet him with a grin and maybe a self-deprecating chuckle before echoing his previous question, tasting the words in this new situation. But he's different, now, and Sugane's different; Sugane sees him a little more clearly, and Jou can see himself in the mirror, now, can see the shape of a person in his skin instead of the automaton he sometimes used to feel like. And it feels disingenuous to ask when he knows so clearly what the answer will be, to wait for a suggestion when he thinks Sugane must be all but expecting the question.

He delays for nearly an hour, mulling over options in the back of his head, but when the idea strikes him he knows it to be the right one without thinking, without analyzing. It settles into his head with the weight of the _right_ idea, the power of certainty as if it's a puzzle piece filling in a gap that could never be anything else. Jou's reaching for his NOTE without hesitating, the words forming on his tongue as he opens it, finally certain.

"Sugane." The letters on the page lack the warmth of that name in his mouth, the low purr of pleasure under the syllables, but they are enough nonetheless. "Today we go drinking."

Even over the distance, the flattening of emotion into black on white, Jou is sure Sugane will hear the promise in the words.


End file.
